


when all is lost, you have not lost me

by simplyprologue



Category: The Tudors
Genre: F/M, Historical AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-10 20:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a bloody civil war ousts the fledgling Tudor dynasty, Mary fears that all is lost. But in the darkness is where love grows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when all is lost, you have not lost me

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a prompt I got on my tumblr, asking for a civil war and a chary response. Short and sweet.

The weather suits England’s mood, the thunder rumbling through the countryside like the hand of God—it grips them all tight, and shakes them, like the short-lived Tudor dynasty. Sleet pelts the thin glass of the carriage’s windows, the wheels fighting against the mottled, frozen ground and the thick layer of snow and ice. 

The King is dead. 

Mary presses her face into the Ambassador’s doublet, her thin fingers clenching at the fine fur of his cloak. The carriage creeps slowly southward, to their passage into the Netherlands.  _He came back_ , she thinks.  _Even when all was lost, he came back for me._ It was more than her father could say, were he alive. But no, Henry VIII had been slaughtered on the road on his attempt to flee to France. For once, Mary is glad of her father’s inattention. 

Her sister and brother are curled into each other on the opposite bench, exhausted and pale and asleep. 

Chapuys carefully raises her delicate chin, cupping it in his hand. “You will be safe now, my lady. You are still a Trastamara. Aragon and Castille will welcome you home.”

Mary sighs, leaning her cheek into his palm. “Where will you go? Back to the Emperor’s court?” 

He hesitates, his thumb betraying his cautious, tortured eyes by skimming along the soft skin of her face. He raises his other hand to her head, uses them to frame her in his gaze. He is large where she is small, coarse where she is refined. He would brave any storm for her, his lady.

He wonders belatedly, almost frightened, but more astonished, when he became more loyal to the Lady Mary than to Charles. And it is then he knows the answer. 

“No, my lady. I will go with you for as long as you need me.”

Her eyes water over, but a small, hopeful smile breaks over her face. It is small, and dainty, but to him, it is brighter than sunshine. “Eustace,” she whispers, and he feels her fingers thread through his curls. 

_All is lost_ , he thinks faintly when she presses her lips to his.  _But I will not lose her._

The storm that grips England has just begun—wintry and harsh and cold, but for them, it will always be the summerland.


End file.
